flea

First, I don't think I know anyone in Austin here, do I?  I'll be there for a wedding Feb. 26.  Anybody been to Austin lately and can suggest fun things to do or places to eat?

So, it snowed Sunday night - supposedly 8.8 inches, but we got more like 4-6 - with maybe a scanty 1/4 inch of ice on top.  Unlike most Georgia snowstorms, it may not melt for a loong time - it was above freezing today, but not by much, and it was cloudy, and it's forecast to be at or below freezing for days to come.  I've heard two separate reports of a snowplow sighting in our city, but if we own more than the one I'll be shocked, and the main thoroughfare two blocks from our house did not seem to me as if it had seen a plow, and was also not sanded or salted, as of 11am today.  With tens of thousands of healthy young students in the city, you'd think we could organize and clear the roads pretty well by hand, but because the snow mostly does melt quickly there's a sense of fatalism about it.  My neighbors, lovely people, were kind of boggled that I cleared the ice from my sidewalk with a pointed garden shovel this morning.  Clearly it did not occur to them that they might do the same - why bother?  As a Facebook friend put it, "I'll just wait for the sun." 

School and work for me are cancelled tomorrow for the third day.  It's getting pretty boring.  So far in the past 3 days we have made waffles twice, brownies, blueberry muffins, lentil soup, spaghetti and meatballs, and potato and leek soup.  The kids have finished their thank-you notes. At least the power didn't go out.

Things annoying me:

1. Whining students who have apparently never had the power go out ("I had to call my mother on my cell phone to find out if we had school!" Oh, the agony!) and feel that icy sidewalks at 8am are so risky to their health that everything should be closed. I mean, they would close Chicago 90 days a year if that were true!

2. Repeat after me: I will not pop-psychologize people I don't know or care about in a fandom I don't belong to. It is not my job to understand their Secret Pains.

3. Weaning is okay, except Dillo is a little sick and hasn't slept through since we did the weaning, and I am all tired again.

4. My newly irregular and weird menstrual cycle. What up, body?

5. Why don't I have cake, right here, right now?

For the record: twenty months is a difficult age to travel by air, especially when the child is flying as a lap child. It is also a difficult age to sit through a 1.5 hour Catholic mass. These events were basically our yesterday. Other highlights included Dillo shouting "AIRPLANE" whenever he saw one (since we were at an airport and/or on an airplane, this was often), Casper spilling a full cup of apple juice into her skirt while on the plane, and Dillo popping up over the back of the seat to shout "HEWWOW!" at our neighbors. Also we saw deer at the airport parking lot.

We had 6 inches of snow on Friday night (yay); a complete and total love-fest between Casper and her cousin Ryan, who is 9; swimming in the pool at the hotel; Dillo eating yo-yo for breakfast all by himself; a lot of whining by cousin Erin, who is 5 and having some kind of phase; and, of course, more Turbo-Toddler. In general Casper was a delight to be with the entire trip, and Dillo was charming yet exhausting.

I need a vacation. Am having second breakfast and hoping cup 2 of coffee will help make the day happen.

Not sticking yet, but soon I hope.

Phew. If we got no snow, there was going to be one disappointed kid. She has been explaining how she plans to make her snowman all day. (We have accepted that it may have to be a *miniature* snowman, like Calvin makes.)